Lux
by Smarty Cat
Summary: Freedom lies in the lights of the city... AxI ALL comments and criticisms are welcome.


This originally started out as a different Integra vignette, then progressed to a different pairing from a different series, and finally morphed until I no longer knew what it was. My friends, however, dubbed it Hellsing fic so Hellsing fic it shall be . . . even if it does stray into the dangerous realm of fluffy AxI. There's a larger story lurking somewhere behind this though, I think. Something that would make it all make sense. Perhaps someday I'll write it.

Completed: October 23, 2004

**Lux**

by  
**Smarty Cat**

She pressed her palms flat against the windowpane and allowed the chill of the night air to seep through the glass and into her skin. It made a nice contrast to the sweltering heat of the rest of the room, the fire dead in long undisturbed ashes but the heater turned up full blast.

The sky glowed with myriad pinpricks of colored lights dancing and twinkling in front of her eyes, but they were not stars. The sky was overcast and devoid of stars or moon, but the lights of the city shone so brightly that they were like stars, just as distant, just as impersonal, just as untouchable. They were flickering, ephemeral, yet they would burn her if only she could touch them. She wanted to touch them, desperately wanted to feel the inferno raging through her, pounding through her blood, heating the chill deep within her body, the chill that no fire or heater could ever warm. Their beauty called to her.

Their beauty was deceptive, however. They hid the squalor and the filth, the sick and the poor, beneath their iridescent colors. She knew that; she had wandered beneath them often enough in her childhood, before her father died and obligations larger than she had ever dreamed of adorned her brow. City streets did not change with city names. They were all the same. They were the same, but they were free.

Her nails scraped down the glass.

She craved anonymity. She wanted to lose herself, to be just another figure in a shifting, faceless crowd. She wanted to forget who she was, her role, the expectations, the weight of responsibility that burned shoulders seemingly too slender to bear it, but she was steel at the core, like the city itself.

Beauty came with distance, and because she was distant she was considered beautiful. Others only saw the aristocratic, fine-boned exterior. They did not see the foundation, the endlessly twisting subterranean corridors of self that made her the person she was, the leader she was. They did not see the scars from the fires that had tempered her spirit or the watermarks of the tears she had shed.

She straightened at a displacement in the air of the room behind her and turned, her fingertips falling from the window. He made no move to touch the lights but stood in the doorway and allowed the darkness to embrace him, a shadow among shadows. Her shadow. And the light of the city was reflected in his eyes.

His gaze skimmed past her to the window and the city beyond. "You wish to go?"

She turned, following his gaze, her right hand rising and tracing from sparkle to sparkle in an aimless pattern. "Will you take me?"

She felt him approach, her body flushing with an intense awareness of him standing at her back. His voice, low and amused, stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. "You're not trapped here."

"But I am. This is my cage. I made it."

"Then you can break it," he responded, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders before sliding down her arms and pulling her to his chest.

She relaxed against the solid wall of his body, tilting her head back to fit perfectly into the crook of his neck. "And if I am afraid?"

His throat vibrated with silent laughter against her lips. "You're not afraid."

She was in the perfect position to nip him for his impertinence, but the thought that it might be more reward than punishment stilled her. "Then why haven't I left?" she demanded archly.

She felt that rumble again, and he spun her in his arms, one hand hooking beneath her chin and forcing her head up. "Because you love it. It's your cage. You made it, and you love it."

She stared at the city lights in his eyes, at the freedom in his eyes. "But I hate it too," she whispered. "I'm forever at a distance, staring at a light I cannot touch."

His fingers slid in a caress down her throat, catching a long strand of blonde hair and raising it so that it glowed in the light from the window. "The light loves you."

She smiled faintly and ran the back of her hand down his cheek. "And does the night love me too?"

He caught her hand with his own and pressed a kiss to her palm, his eyes intense beneath the sheltering tangle of his hair. "Come with me, and I will show you."


End file.
